Parks in the Cities
Renewing Communities
Urban Institute, Christopher Walker
MR. KOJO NNAMDI: From
WAMU at American University in
Washington, this is Public
Interest. I'm Kojo Nnamdi.
Across the country, there seems
to be a renewed appreciation for
urban parks, once seen as almost
a scourge on some communities,
a place for derelicts, drug
addicts, and vandals, places from
Central Park to Golden Gate Park
are enjoying a resurgence. Is it
happening in your neighborhood
yet? If so, who and what should
get the credit? If not, how can
you make it happen?
Listen in Real
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Document date: May 30, 2001
Released online: May 30, 2001
Listen to this
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But is it also possible for a wide range of urban parks, from downtown historic plazas to riverfront greenways,
to community gardens and small neighborhood playgrounds, to come together to promote a unified agenda?
Well, according to our guests, it's not only possible, it is also happening. Joining us to talk about this
phenomenon is Chris Walker, director of the Community and Economic Development Program at the Urban
Institute. Chris is in our studio in Washington. Thank you for joining us.
MR. CHRIS WALKER: You're welcome. Thank you for inviting me.
MR. NNAMDI: And, as you know, this is part of an ongoing series with the Urban Institute that we do here
on Public Interest. Joining us from the studios of WNYE in New York is Tupper Thomas, who is the Prospect
Park administrator and president of the Prospect Park Alliance in Brooklyn, New York. Tupper Thomas,
welcome.
MS. TUPPER THOMAS: Thank you very much. It's great to be with you.
MR. NNAMDI: Also joining us is Majora Carter. She is former chair of the Bronx River working group and the
founder of a brand new nonprofit organization called Sustainable South Bronx. Majora Carter, welcome to you.
MS. MAJORA CARTER: Thanks for having me.
MR. NNAMDI: Majora joins us by telephone. I understand, Majora, that had I asked you about the Bronx
River, say, three years ago, that I would have been met with, well, a blank face.
MS. CARTER: To say the least. I was born and raised in Hunt's Point, which is a section of the South Bronx.
And there's the Bronx River Parkway, which runs right near it. And honestly, it really didn't occur to me that
the Bronx River was much more than a parkway, because that was the name of this place, because I'd never
really seen it.
MR. NNAMDI: You were running around saying, why does this parkway have this odd name?
MS. CARTER: Yeah, you saw it further up, like when you went further up the Bronx River near Westchester,
into Westchester, then, you know, clearly, there was a river nearby it. But because the river had been moved
by, I guess, in many circles, the master builder, Robert Moses, you know, he literally moved the river to make
room for the parkway. And so, therefore, in many cases, it's nowhere near the parkway itself, like when you
go further down into the Bronx.
MR. NNAMDI: And so, what you want to talk about is the impact of a river on a community that barely knew
that river existed. Tell us a little bit about how you discovered the river and how you got involved with it.
MS. CARTER: Well, it's actually sort of a backhanded kind of story. Basically, we—I'm from the South Bronx,
like I said before—and we had been struggling against the perception of our community being known as one
of the prime locations for waste transfer stations. Our neighborhood handles about 40 percent of the city's
commercial trash. And, you know, I guess in 1996, both our mayor and our governor had decided that there
needed to be a change in the way that garbage was handled in New York City, which meant that the landfill,
which is where most of the garbage or most of the municipal waste was going to, was going to be closed. And
so they had to figure out a way to handle what was left of it.
And so we realized that one of the preferred proposals was actually this proposal called American Marine Rail,
which was actually designed to bring about 40 percent of the city's municipal waste to the Hunt's Point
waterfront—that's in addition to the 40 percent of the commercial waste. And so we realized that, wait a
second, all our community is being known for at this point is garbage. But we were able to look around and
see that, you know, we do have waterfront.
Like, I went to a school called the Hunt's Point Municipal School when I was growing up in the neighborhood,
up until I graduated from there in the eighth grade. And so, I could tell on the map that we were surrounded
by water on three sides. However, we couldn't really get to it at all because there was mostly industry on our
shores. So, I realized, I was like, wait a second—so basically, you know, I kind of decided, here we are, we
have to start thinking of ourselves in different terms. If city agencies and our government are thinking of us
as a place to store trash, and we have other assets here, then we need to start looking around for other
things.
And it just so happens that they got a request proposal from a young woman named Jenny Hoffner, who was
working as the Bronx River outreach coordinator for Partnerships for Parks, which is a really interesting
alliance between the City of New York Parks Department—
MR. NNAMDI: And which we will hear more about during the course of this discussion. You worked for an
organization called The Point that was devoted to creating economic development opportunities in the South
Bronx. You'd never been involved in environmental issues before.
MS. CARTER: No. And had it not been for the garbage issue, we never would have gotten involved in it at all.
But because it was so big, we realized that even, you know, a youth development, and an economic
development, and an arts organization like The Point had to also become a part of the issue. And so, we
really decided to organize on that issue, and that's why we decided to look at our waterfront as another step
toward our community's revitalization.
MR. NNAMDI: So what'd you do?
MS. CARTER: We responded to this request proposal, you know, to actually store, basically, some public
access to the lower regions of the Bronx River, but, of course, then we had to find it. [Laughs] It was like,
well, we know we're getting this RFP because it's here, but darned if I knew where it was. And had I not
gotten the dog at the same time that needed to be walked a lot—
MR. NNAMDI: Have dog, must find river.
MS. CARTER: Basically. And we would wander around everywhere. And then, lo and behold, like down the
street—it was basically a street that sort of turned in the middle—there was the Bronx River, as I've never
seen it before. And that was the beginning.
MR. NNAMDI: How did you eventually provide access to the river?
MS. CARTER: We actually were awarded a small seed grant from Partnerships for Parks, and we were able to
leverage that—it was only about $10,000—and we were able to leverage that about 20 times over within the
first year and a half. You know, very simply, as far as I was concerned, the idea of developing public access
to the lower region of the Bronx, it became a mission for me. You know, I looked at it as a real step, as a real
vital step toward getting people involved in our community on the waterfront. Like, I saw it as a way to start
doing canoe rides and environmental stewardship programs.
And you know, within the next three years, we actually started doing those things. And I think it was the kind
of thing that, you know, you just have to see it to believe it. But once you did, people stayed.
MR. NNAMDI: What impact has it had on the quality of life of people who live in that neighborhood?
MS. CARTER: It's really incredible because, you know, there's so many people who look at it—and honestly,
so many of the folks in our community were like me, and had no idea that there was a river that ran right
through the community. And so, for many of us, when we would get them out on the water on a canoe ride
for the first time, it had been their first time ever, you know, on the water in their own community, or
anywhere for that matter. And so for us it's really been a really wonderful way to get people involved in
thinking about their neighborhood in a way that's different from the way that it's always perceived, which is
usually as, you know, a place where, basically, the kind of things that no one else in the city would want, like
waste transfer stations, or anything else like that—just, we don't need those there.
MR. NNAMDI: Has it had any impact on economic development in the area?
MS. CARTER: Yes. We are definitely working, along with other members of the Bronx River Working Group,
which is an alliance of more than 60 city, state, federal agencies, community groups, schools, businesses, to
really look at creating a greenway that will expand the entire length of the Bronx River. And we definitely see
the greenways actually do and can impact economic development by providing a different kind of economic
development, usually one that's focused around greener activities, be it, you know, some kind of mixed-use
development that's park related, or some kind of like park-related concession. And so, for us, we look at them
as an economic development measure as well as something that can actually help green our environment.
MR. NNAMDI: Majora Carter, I know that your time with us is limited, so I wanted to bring Chris Walker and
Tupper Thomas into the conversation. Feel free to say goodbye whenever you have to go, but hang around
as long as you can. I'm guessing, Chris Walker, that city officials will take a lot of credit for those
improvements in the South Bronx, but few will credit the river with playing much of a role. What role do you
see parks and rivers playing in communities?
MR. CHRIS WALKER: Well, I think Majora's story illustrates a couple of the really big themes of urban
change over the last decade. And two of those themes are these. One is that public agencies increasingly, and
not just in the parks field, but in lots of fields, are increasingly partnering with nonprofits as a way to get done
what they need to get done. And the Sustainable South Bronx and its collaboration with 60 other agencies, I
think, is a pretty good illustration of that.
And secondly, one thing that I think we've learned about neighborhood change now is that it's impossible to
do it well when pursuing only single-shot solutions or ones that are isolated from one another. That it's all
about comprehensive approaches to change, and that parks are uniquely well suited to providing a kind of
platform for those approaches.
MR. NNAMDI: Tupper Thomas, you're thinking on the same issue. Do you think that the public gives parks
the credit they deserve? How do you pull people into organizing around parks and greenspace?
MS. THOMAS: Well actually, this is what I've been working on, I guess, for 21 years now. It's a very exciting
adventure, because what an asset these public parks are. And I'm not sure they're always recognized that
way. One of the really important things that we were able to do is to start bringing people back to Prospect
Park, getting them involved through programming and activities to say it's safe, and clean it. And now we
have 5,000 volunteers and a very strong community committee, representing 80 organizations from around
the park.
And I think people start to really recognize that the park is not just a place to go sit under a tree, as you said
in your introduction, but is really a great place to get together to be a strong community, and it's a very
democratic space. So in a place like Brooklyn, that's two and a half million people and hundreds of
nationalities. It's the one place where people can get together and be comfortable together, and have fun at
the same time.
MR. NNAMDI: Is that really causing a change in attitude by those in power toward parks? I mean, sure, it's
easy to get those who are involved in that environment to appreciate parks, but how do you get city
government officials to appreciate parks and allocate dollars when there are so many competing concerns?
MS. THOMAS: Well actually, that's what we're the most involved in right now, here in New York. One of the
things that we've all found is that the citizenry have to be involved first—that the elected officials will respond
to the citizens if they are saying, "Parks are important to us." And it took a long time to get the public to
know how important their parks were. So that in a survey of how important is the parks versus police, and so
on and so forth, parks ranked way up high by citizens, and yet they don't know how to demand money for
parks or more interest in parks by their elected officials.
So, this wonderful group called the Partnership for Parks, that Majora's been involved with as well, worked
with the Prospect Park Alliance and a number of other groups to try to organize all these volunteer groups,
because there are hundreds in New York. And yet, the New York City budget is very low, and we have been
trying to educate our elected officials about how important parks should be, and how important that should
mean they are within the budget.
MR. NNAMDI: Chris Walker, money is often hard to come by for urban parks, but it's my understanding that
there are a number of new federal initiatives that are specifically designed to bring money back for
greenspace in downtown areas.
MR. WALKER: Yes, there are. The Land and Water Conservation Fund has been re-funded, and it is an
important source of new money for urban parks. There is a set-aside specifically for urban parks within that
overall framework of federal spending. But I think the real story is state and local money, actually. And one of
the things that we have done at the Urban Institute is to look at partnerships as a way of generating revenue
for public agencies that otherwise wouldn't be able to tap certain sources of funding, like philanthropic
sources. And the importance of that, I think, is illustrated by Majora's story, that they got an initial seed grant
that they leveraged 20 times. It's very difficult for public agencies to do that.
MR. NNAMDI: Chris Walker is the director of the Community and Development Programs at the Urban
Institute. He joins us in our Washington studio. Tupper Thomas is the Prospect Park administrator and
president of the Prospect Park Alliance in Brooklyn, New York. She joins us from the studios of WNYE in New
York. And Majora Carter, the former chair of the Bronx River Working Group and the founder of a brand new
nonprofit organization called Sustainable South Bronx. Majora has to go. Thank you for joining us.
MS. CARTER: Thank you.
MR. NNAMDI: And we have to take a short break. We'll be right back.
MR. NNAMDI: Welcome back to our conversation about urban parks, a part of our continuing series with the
Urban Institute. We are, in fact, joined by Chris Walker, director of the Community and Economic
Development Program at the Urban Institute, and Tupper Thomas, the Prospect Park administrator and
president of the Prospect Park Alliance in Brooklyn, New York. And joining us by telephone now is Mayor Tom
Murphy of Pittsburgh. Mr. Mayor, welcome.
MR. TOM MURPHY: Hi, how are you doing?
MR. NNAMDI: Good to have you on.
MR. MURPHY: Thank you for inviting me.
MR. NNAMDI: You placed the creation of a new park in the south of Pittsburgh at the center of your recent
reelection agenda.
MR. MURPHY: I did.
MR. NNAMDI: Why an urban park as a major piece of your plan?
MR. MURPHY: Well, because in Pittsburgh, we are blessed with four large urban parks presently in the city,
in a very relatively small city. And one area of the city that does not have a large park like that is the South
Hills area of the city of Pittsburgh. And with the possibility of an old railroad right away for sale, we saw the
opportunity of using that railroad right away as a spine, in effect, that runs through about a five-mile-long
valley, and connecting to it, almost 1,500 acres of what would be open space now into what would be the last
great park that we could create in Pittsburgh.
MR. NNAMDI: Well, as you probably know, there's an article on the front page of the New York Times today
that features Pittsburgh as part of an increasing number of cities that are seeking to win more immigrants to
the city. And in that article, it says that Pittsburgh has reinvented itself in a lot of ways, after losing the old
steel mills in the 1980s.
MR. MURPHY: That is true.
MR. NNAMDI: Is the urban park and the creation of greenspace a part of that reinvention?
MR. MURPHY: Well, it is a very integral part of it. In fact, when we were growing up in Pittsburgh, our
mothers always told us two things: Be home before the streetlights come on, and never go near the rivers,
because the rivers were filled, of course, with factories, and railroad right-of-ways, the riverfronts. We now
have acquired well over 20 miles of the riverfronts in Pittsburgh, have built several thousand new units of
housing, office buildings. And, of course, the whole riverfront now is a continuous park, and we have built
well over 15 miles of riverfront trails along these old industrial sites and railroad lines.
So besides the park we talked about earlier in the South Hills of Pittsburgh, we are building literally miles of
riverfront park now in the city of Pittsburgh itself, really connecting the whole city through a green necklace.
Our vision really is to create, you know, somewhere between 70 and 100 miles of trails that interconnect the
city's neighborhoods in all of these parks that we have, these big parks that we have.
MR. NNAMDI: Well, what kind of responses have you been getting from residents and businesses for your
parks?
MR. MURPHY: Well, I think for a lot of Pittsburghers it was something that was impossible to envision, given
the conditions that existed on these sites. And I think as we do more developments like this now, it is much
easier to see it. You know, we opened up, a few years ago, one of the first large trails, and it parallels a very
busy highway. And when people see from the highways, they drive back and forth families there,
rollerblading, or biking, or walking, or running; it changes their image of what could happen on that riverfront.
MR. NNAMDI: As you know, Chris Walker at the Urban Institute is in our Washington studio. Chris, you know
Pittsburgh pretty well, don't you.
MR. WALKER: Yes, I do. I grew up there also.
MR. MURPHY: Did you, Chris?
MR. WALKER: Yeah, I did.
MR. MURPHY: What part?
MR. WALKER: Mt. Lebanon.
MR. MURPHY: Oh, did you, okay. Well, this is in the 51-Corridor. You would know that.
MR. WALKER: Oh yeah, sure I do.
MR. MURPHY: And you know the big trestles that run over right as you go into the Fort Pitt Bridge.
MR. WALKER: Oh yeah, sure I do.
MR. MURPHY: And as you go into the Liberty Tubes, those trestles will be part of this railroad right-of-way
that we're looking to acquire.
MR. WALKER: That's a terrific site.
MR. MURPHY: Yeah.
MR. NNAMDI: According to the reports I've read, Mayor Murphy, last year, the U.S. Conference of Mayors
spent a large amount of time and energy lobbying Congress for funding to expand urban park space. Why that
big push?
MR. MURPHY: I think all of us see great revitalization underway across American cities, you know, lots of old
buildings that were thought to have no value now being converted to new apartment complexes, lots of new
in-town living. And coming with that is obviously the issue of quality of life. And parks and the ability to
access parks, and particularly now, I think all of us that enjoy running and biking look at those opportunities
as really adding to the whole experience and the fun of being able to live in the city.
And, you know, you didn't think much of that in cities. And for me, one of the heroes in Pittsburgh is a guy
named Edward Bigelow who, 100 years ago, when a large piece of property came up for sale to be developed,
was able to convince the owners to donate it to the city to convert it into what is called Schenley Park here.
It's about a 500-acre—one of the large parks we have, a 500-acre park. And, you know, you don't see those
kinds of parks being created as much in suburban communities and townships and boroughs anymore, and so
you have to admire people 100 years ago that had the vision to recognize that parks in a city are going to
add, really, an immeasurable amenity to the lifestyle of what it means to live in the city.
MR. NNAMDI: But, Mr. Mayor, being the mayor of a big city today may be a little more difficult than it was
100 years ago.
MR. MURPHY: I don't think any more difficult. Different issues, but I'm sure just as difficult.
MR. NNAMDI: You do have to provide a whole lot of city services for which, obviously, there are a limited
amount of dollars. People want more money for education; they want more money for housing; they want
their trash picked up. How do you make parks a top priority in people's minds?
MR. MURPHY: Well, I think the big challenge of being a mayor—and there's always the tension between
worrying about the day-to-day things, what it means to make sure the city's safe, and the trash is picked up,
and the streets get paved. But if you're going to be a successful city and a successful mayor in governing a
city, you also have to keep your eye on the future. So you've always got to be setting aside some time and
some resources to invest in the future of a city. And in my mind, the future of a city is intrinsically connected
to the public spaces that you create.
That's what makes cities really great places, the public spaces you create, whether it is a narrow strip along a
riverfront that you've committed to public access or a large park, as we have in Pittsburgh, where, if you
were in the middle of the park, you would have no sense that you're in the middle of a major city. And that's
a value that's hard to measure, but I think is an important part of making cities successful.
MR. NNAMDI: Tom Murphy is the mayor of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. And at least in the short run, his
political future seems assured. He has won the primary in this largely Democratic jurisdiction, which virtually
assures that he will win the election itself. Mayor Murphy, thank you for joining us.
MR. MURPHY: Thank you. Get in touch with us in a few months, and I'm sure we'll have some exciting new
developments to talk about in the parks.
MR. NNAMDI: Thank you very much. It's Public Interest. You can join us at 1-800-433-8850. You can also
e-mail us at pi@wamu.org. That was the voice of Tupper Thomas, who is a Prospect Park administrator and
president of the Prospect Park Alliance in Brooklyn, New York. Your turn, Tupper.
MS. THOMAS: I was actually just going to say, I just came back from Pittsburgh, where I was a speaker at
their fancy-hat lunch to raise money for those four historic parks. And they have a wonderful public/private
partnership arrangement going on in Pittsburgh. And to have a mayor who has just said all those things, I
was just going to offer that if he wanted to run for office in New York, we would be very interested—
MR. NNAMDI: His parks may not be spicy enough. [Laughter.] We don't know.
MS. THOMAS: Oh, I'm not going there.
MR. NNAMDI: Nor am I. But I do understand, Tupper, that the story in New York is a bit different—that after
years of funding at higher levels, the city of New York is backing away from its commitment to urban parks.
Why?
MS. THOMAS: Well actually, the city of New York has been doing this for a number of years now. It is not
this administration really—in the last 10 or 12 years, the city has dramatically cut its services in parks. And at
the same time, an enormous amount of private dollars is starting to go in, and partnerships have formed. The
obvious one is the Central Park Conservancy, but Prospect Park is an example of, not necessarily a smaller
park, but a park that is more of a local kind of a park, picking up and getting private dollars brought in. And
that's been a very wonderful thing that the private sector has become involved, has picked up some of the
slack. But at the same time, that means that some parks are good, but many, many, many of the other parks
need to have a lot of money put back into them now.
And so we're very anxious and have started to sort of advocate that the next people running for office, people
running for mayor at the next go-round have to be people who are pro-park. And I'd love to have all four of
the candidates just talk the way that Mayor Murphy just spoke. It would be terrific to hear those words from
everyone's mouth, because we all know that these parks make a huge difference in the quality of life for
people and in the way that they see themselves and their communities.
MR. NNAMDI: The number to call, 1-800-433-8850, or you can e-mail us at pi@wamu.org. Chris Walker,
across the nation there does seem to be a move toward the public/private partnerships on behalf of parks.
How do those partnerships generally work?
MR. WALKER: Well, generally speaking, the partners take on different roles. The public sector has
MR. WALKER: Well, generally speaking, the partners take on different roles. The public sector has
traditionally been responsible for capital improvements and for maintenance of parks and for programming
parks in terms of recreation and other kinds of services. And very recently, the nonprofits have become much
more active, taking on the kinds of things that public agencies don't do very well. Public agencies don't
typically do very well raising money from philanthropic sources. Public agencies don't typically do very well at
community organizing. And nonprofits do both of those reasonably well.
As an example, we estimated that in the mid-1990s, the nonprofit sector in the recreation and environmental
area was about a $6 billion industry. Compare that to state and local spending on urban parks and recreation
around $16 billion. The nonprofit center has contributed, in the middle of the 1990s, about 25 percent, 25 to
30 percent of all the spending on urban parks and recreation. It's a considerable amount, and it was growing,
at that time, at about 10 percent a year. So one thing the private sector does is it represents a new way for
public parks to support themselves financially.
The other thing that the nonprofit sector does is that it connects with constituencies that the public agencies
can't do all that well. It's no accident that much of the work Majora reported was not being organized by the
Commission for Parks in New York City; it was organized by a nonprofit with neighborhood roots. And we see
that happening time and time again across the country, where the nonprofit sector has a certain kind of
respectability and legitimacy in communities that public agencies sometimes don't have.
MR. NNAMDI: You know, Tupper Thomas, you seem to be a personification of this public/private partnership,
being both the Prospect Park administrator, on the one hand, making you a government employee
presumably, and on the other, being the president of the Prospect Park Alliance in Brooklyn. Tell us a little bit
how that is not a conflict of interest.
MS. THOMAS: It's actually wonderful. I've always said it's great to have two bosses, because then you can
always blame the other one. But it works out really very well, and it takes both sides wanting to make it work.
It means that the City of New York park commissioner has to want to have a cooperative relationship with the
not-for-profit. And it means that the not-for-profit is going to be positive, helpful, and do a balancing thing
with the parks.
I think Chris did a study on a number of us that are working on this sort of thing, and they came up with this
analysis that said that really, the private sector is there for a long, long term. The public sector changes on a
rather regular basis because of the city government changing. And one of the things we are able to do was
when the not-for-profit group was weak and not very strong, the city agency was able to lift it and help it out.
And then, at a time when the not-for-profit is strong, it can make sure that its city partner also rises to the
occasion.
And so, you're really there to help each other out and to also encourage, let's say, the other to do their part.
And when you talk about what the city does well versus what the private sector does well, the private-sector
arm that we have is really very much involved in programs and activities, and augments dollars, is what we
call it. It is not to do maintenance [activities] that keep bathrooms open and clean the park, but to get
volunteers to do community organizing, have wonderful educational programs, do youth leadership and youth
training, do all kinds of things that bring the park into the community in a stronger way. And that's where
we'd like to see that always going, and not always into operations.
MR. NNAMDI: This is Public Interest. I'm Kojo Nnamdi. Let's get to the telephones now, Tupper and Chris,
and start with Bo in Charlotte, North Carolina. Bo, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.
BO: Hi, Kojo. I'm from Charlotte, as you said, and I just wanted to make a note for all the Charlotte listeners
that one of the few downtown greenspaces, Marshall Park, is, I guess, sort of slated for development from the
city. I guess it's lacking in office space. It seems to come at a funny time, when we're talking about building a
new arena downtown and a lot of other amenities. But Charlotte's a city with very few parks to begin with.
And I guess I'd like to hear what the guests have to say. And I really don't know what there is to do locally,
other than speak out to your local officials.
MR. NNAMDI: Well, that's one of the reasons we have the address here, because they have been (a) doing
and (b) studying this issue for some time, and probably have a great deal of both suggestions and, I guess,
historic or institutional memory on what other people have done and what you might be able to do. So, Bo,
stay on the line and we'll see what Chris Walker and Tupper Thomas have to offer. Tupper.
MS. THOMAS: Well, I think probably the biggest problem is that parks absolutely have to be saved from that
sort of thing. It's like what Mayor Murphy was saying, that great cities make great parks. That's the theme of
what we've all worked on for a long time. Great parks are in great cities. You can't have a really great city
without a great park in it. And parkland is so essential and never can be retrieved. It's so expensive to get it
back; it's almost impossible. You can always find another location for some other activity. And it's just
unfortunate that people don't see these as protected spaces. The important thing is to get your city
government to ultimately say that parks must be protected, and [get it] legislatively done so that it cannot be
touched.
MR. NNAMDI: Chris.
MR. WALKER: One thing that city politicians don't like to hear is that their city is going in a direction which is
different from that of where the recognized leaders in the field are going. And as I think, Kojo, you alluded to
earlier, there is a movement nationally to recognize the value of urban parks and greenspace as critical to a
city's economic future. Mayor Daley in Chicago was probably the most articulate example of that. Wellington
Webb in Denver, Mark Morial down in New Orleans, all of them have recognized and have embraced urban
Webb in Denver, Mark Morial down in New Orleans, all of them have recognized and have embraced urban
parks as a critical part of the urban future. And I think having those examples out there would be pretty
important to someone trying to make the case in a community that hasn't accepted that.
MR. NNAMDI: Bo, one gets the impression in Charlotte that there's more of an emphasis on commercial
development.
BO: There sure is.
MR. NNAMDI: Thank you very much for your call. Bo knows greenspace. Thank you very much for your call.
The number is 1-800-433-8850. You can e-mail us at pi@wamu.org as we continue our discussion on urban
parks with Tupper Thomas, Prospect Park administrator and president of the Prospect Park Alliance in
Brooklyn, New York, and Chris Walker, director of the Community and Economic Development Program at the
Urban Institute. We'll be right back.
MR. NNAMDI: We're talking about parks in the nation's cities, and exactly what residents and governments
and public/private partnerships are doing about those parks in many areas of the country. Back to you,
Tupper Thomas. For many years, Prospect Park was known as a place that you wouldn't want to walk in
alone. It's a beautiful park, designed by Frederick Olmstead, but it had become a magnet for crime by the
1970s. How did you effect the turnaround?
MS. THOMAS: Well, let's see, 21 years. [Laughter.] It was because, in fact, the mayor and the private sector
sort of worked together. The local citizens of Brooklyn went to the mayor and said, why is it that Brooklyn,
two and half million people as part of the city of New York, has this gorgeous park and nobody can go into it,
and nothing is happening? And our local elected officials actually pulled behind us. And I was hired in 1980,
with a federal grant. So we put a lot of government money together to start to make a difference in capital
dollars.
And then we did a lot of work with the community, with outreach, with the press. And one of the things that
government doesn't always do well, but that our parks commissioner has always done very well, is deal with
the press, and get them to understand the importance of parks. And I think that that was a really important
first step. So that when a local press person would write down that this rape occurred near Prospect Park, and
I would actually call and say, what was the address? And it would be a mile and a half away. And so, then I'd
call the editor, and I'd say, excuse me, but that was a mile and a half from Prospect Park; is that really fair to
put the word Prospect Park into your article, and then try to get the reporters to come out?
And it took a lot of that kind of work. Knowing and understanding how the public deals with it is something
that usually government doesn't do a lot of. And I think that was a very important thing. And then, starting to
have some activities that weren't necessarily gigantic sing-ins, be-ins, as there had been that ruined Central
Park earlier in the 1970s, but smaller events, educational events, cultural events—all the wonderful cultures in
Brooklyn, and to have them, invite them in.
We actually were able to give some money out during the early period of this—Reader's Digest Fund grants
that we had gotten. And so we could hire people from the Chinese community, the Haitian community, the
Puerto Rican community, the Mexican community to do events in the park. And now we don't even need to do
that, because people are just coming to us, so that now there are huge festivals that will occur there from all
sorts of cultural types of people. And they come on their own now, but it took a lot of just orchestrating,
getting people to see that it was a positive place, that crime was down, that they could come back.
MR. NNAMDI: On to Lisa on the telephone at the National Civic League in Washington, D.C. Lisa, you're on
the air. Go ahead, please.
LISA: Good afternoon. Yes, Kojo, I wanted to add, the National Civic League is a nonprofit organization that
is 107 years old, dedicated to citizen engagement and involvement. We work directly with communities to
foster cross-sector collaboration and grassroots problem solving. And we realize that urban parks are a vital
part of the community. Community parks generate community discussion; it's a place for neighbors to meet,
walk the dog, play with the kids, exercise. And this may be one of the only times that neighbors get to
interact.
And so we realize that park usage may be the one thing that dissimilar neighbors have in common. And it also
can be used as a place for community organizations and neighborhood committees to convene. And one of
the things, as we work with communities around the country, we try to get them involved in their
communities. And a major issue that they have is, how is the space in our community being used? And
certainly, the park is a part of that place; that is, their neighborhood.
MR. NNAMDI: Indeed, you make a very good point, Lisa. Thank you for your call.
LISA: Thank you.
MR. NNAMDI: Indeed, I have come to know a lot of my neighbors' dogs a lot better than I used to. They
seem to be infatuated with my leg, either for biting purposes or for purposes of personal relief. [Laughs.] But
that's a whole other story. Parks in England were often seen as pleasure grounds for the well-to-do, but I
understand now, Chris, that park administrators are learning that the key to building community support for a
park is to encourage an ethnic and social class mix. Why the change?
MR. WALKER: Why the change? Well, because we're not 19th-century England. [Laughter.] We're a much
more diverse place, and I think that our use of public spaces reflects that—at least it should—when we
recognize them as being well functioning. But I think what's interesting is that parks aren't just a place where
people of diverse classes and races have an opportunity to mix, but it's also a place where people who have
very different interests in life have an opportunity to pursue their own interests, whether they're related to
one another or not.
I like to think about parks as being kind of a connecting tissue that allows organized communities to do the
things that they want to do and do them well. Example: People who really care a lot about the urban
environment and care a lot about the water quality and air quality and all the rest can see parks as being an
important part of what it is they need to do in order to pursue their own personal and political goals. The
same goes for groups like the National Civic League, which sees parks as a place where real democracy can
flourish.
There are lots of people who are interested in improving neighborhoods, in terms of better housing qualities,
better businesses, better open space. And they see parks as being a part of that connective tissue also. There
are people who are interested in exploring the historical symbols of a place, as Mayor Murphy alluded to.
Schenley Park in Pittsburgh is a place that has almost defined Pittsburgh for the people who live there. And so
there's lots of good reasons why people care about parks, not necessarily connected to one another, but an
important part of the overall structure of support for urban parks.
MS. THOMAS: And actually, Kojo, one of the important things about Frederick Olmstead is that if you look at
his writings—and remember, he had been an abolitionist first, and then he came into this whole parks field
through Central Park—but what he wrote about parks is so true still today that our parks, although designs
look much like the parks in England, were really intended to be for this new immigrant community that was
arriving in the big cities.
And that the large cities had to have places where democracy could take place, where people could be
comfortable and at home, because nature made it so comfortable for them, because everybody loves nature.
And I think that that's a very important [return] to England and its influence, that Olmstead really felt that the
common man should be able to have his pleasure ground as well, and that this was very important. And
that's why these parks are so well placed in our cities today, is that our city fathers and mothers were putting
them in the right places way back when and had that vision.
MR. NNAMDI: On to Anne in Vienna, Virginia. Anne, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.
ANNE: Thank you, Kojo. I was overseas for five years, in Germany, where there seems to be a park every
five to ten blocks. And this really has been an issue I'm really interested in since we've returned. And I had a
question for Tupper—what's her name?
MR. NNAMDI: Tupper Thomas.
ANNE: Yes. She had mentioned about community organization being the key. But here in northern Virginia
where you may be familiar, Evan's Farm Inn is actually quite a strong local organization to try to preserve
what was, in essence, a park, but was run privately and being sold as a development. And then, a similar
situation in Oakton. And is there any way that before the greenspaces are gone, and as they get gobbled up
by development, and areas around—you know, like the D.C. metro area—how could we work to pass laws
that say, if you build all these big mansions, you have to have some public space, or to help prevent the
greenspaces from being gobbled up for commercial or development reasons?
MR. NNAMDI: Tupper.
MS. THOMAS: I think this is a very significant and major issue for all of us now, because we are defending
existing parkland from intrusion; we're defending wonderful spaces that shouldn't be developed from all
across the country. And there is an organization that's trying to get started called the National Alliance for
Urban Parks. Got a whole group of us that have started looking at and talking about, because we realize just
what you're talking about. There needs to be data and information that you could turn to and say, "Oh, parks
and open space bring this and this and this to a community. And that's why, Mr. Mayor, and Mister this one
and that one, you need to be really looking at saving this as open space."
ANNE: It seems like there needs to be an option for the private owner whose property taxes have suddenly
gone through the roof because the land value has gone through the roof. But there's an option that they can
turn to other than the developer.
MS. THOMAS: Actually, I think Chris knows a number of other organizations that help with that sort of thing,
the transfer of public lands, and so on.
MR. NNAMDI: Chris.
MR. WALKER: Transfer of public land is one of them. I think Montgomery County here in the Washington
area is a good example of a jurisdiction that's made use of their regulatory powers to preserve open space.
And it's not necessarily public open space. I mean, they've been emphasizing the preservation of farmland.
But they've done a really terrific job at it. They're a national model for how to do this. And, you know, I would
advise you to connect with those folks.
MR. NNAMDI: This is Public Interest. I'm Kojo Nnamdi. Anne, thank you for your call. On to Mark in
Washington, D.C. Mark, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.
MARK: Well, I'm really delighted to hear this topic. We actually formulated the legislation back in the early
1970s, the first urban park, which happened to be the Cuyahoga Valley Park. And it was not in response to
our river catching on fire, which, of course, had a seminal effect on the environment all together, but really
exactly what you're talking about. And that is to take what was a trash-strewn river, with its beautiful,
pristine upper waters, and in a very crowded megalopolis, going all the way down through Akron and all of
northern Ohio, to give urban folk the ability to take a canoe trip and to take kids to see what is not in their
normal curriculum in schools. And it just had an enormous effect.
There are two people who are the godfathers—three people: Congressman Vanik, who's still alive; Phil
Burton, a congressman who was in charge of all that in the Interior Committee. He was chairman, and then
developed the San Francisco Golden Gate Parks, which were the second in a series of parks in the seventies.
And John Siberling, who was just a magic man, who is still alive and a wonderful man. So there's a long,
deep history of all these years now that has come to this very sophisticated conversation today. For some of
us oldsters, it's a great pleasure. But there were origins here, with very, very deep roots, and have had just
an enormous impact on millions of people now.
And by the way, it was a huge struggle in Congress, because they were all oriented toward massive millions
of acres of the great parks in the West and some of those older ones that were in the East, but nothing like
urban parks. I mean, we went on for years debating the House and Senate, and they thought we were nuts;
they thought it couldn't happen. And it happens. And what's along that river shows the entire development of
the western movement beyond to St. Louis and the West.
MR. NNAMDI: Mark, thank you very much for your call. And Mark mentioned kids, and he mentioned
education. I understand that using the parks for educational purposes can be key. The school systems are
sometimes overburdened. How do you get schools to include the use of the park in their teaching plans? And
what kinds of schools partnerships are there around the country? Tupper.
MS. THOMAS: I can talk a little bit about what we've been doing. When I first started my job, the board of
education in New York City refused to allow the kids in Brooklyn to come to Prospect Park [because] it was so
dangerous. So we actually had to develop educational programming that would work for them. And we have
now partnered with the National Audubon of New York State to create one of the first urban Audubon centers
in the country. And we've really started to work closely as well with the Brooklyn Museum, the Brooklyn
Botanic Gardens, the Brooklyn Public Library, the children's museum, the zoo, all in one area to develop
curricula and look at curricula that could be developed for all the kids in Brooklyn to be able to come through
all of our institutions—not just the park, but a museum and so on—and understand and do work together.
But it takes a major effort of sitting down with a lot of patience to develop programs for teachers to be able to
really understand how a park can fit in their curriculum. But it's being done all over the place now, in a very
interesting and exciting way.
MR. NNAMDI: Chris Walker, we're running out of time very quickly, but your contribution.
MR. WALKER: Well, I think a lot of this is happening around environmental education, because parks are a
natural place to learn about one's natural surroundings. But one of the best stories I've heard is from Central
Park, where the educational director there had encouraged local schools in Harlem to use Central Park as a
way of teaching the history of the Underground Railroad.
MR. NNAMDI: I'm afraid we're just about out of time. Chris Walker is the director of the Community and
Economic Development Program at the Urban Institute, and Tupper Thomas is the Prospect Park
administrator and president of the Prospect Park Alliance in Brooklyn, New York. Today's show was a part of
our ongoing series, in conjunction with the Urban Institute. More information, including a report called
"Partnerships for Parks," is available at www.urban.org. You'll also find a written transcript of this show and
previous Urban Institute shows there.
Other Publications by the Authors
Urban Institute
Christopher Walker
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